wear a warning
by Child-OTKW
Summary: Jonathan gets a visitor, and begins to understand just why everyone is so fixated on Bryce Wayne. Fem!Bruce, Canon Divergence.


**So I'm dedicating this little thing to queendromeda and Neyiea because I fell into their ScareBat stories and absolutely loved what they'd done with Jonathan's character, so I wanted to give them some love in return for all the delightful stories they'd done. I hope you two enjoy this!**

**This one is with Fem!Bruce, because I love me some gender swaps.**

**EDIT: Underwent rewrite 27/08/2020**

* * *

Jonathan knew in an instant—in a breath, the suspended second before his foot crossed the threshold of the room and came to rest on the grime-coated wooden floor—that something was wrong.

The knowledge prickled along his skin, starting at the base of his skull, and crawling down his shoulders to his back. Ghostly fingers that caused the thin hairs on his body to stand on end in response to the finely honed instinct murmuring in his ear.

His hands tightened around the snath of his scythe in anticipation.

He cast his eyes around the space slowly, categorically taking everything in from right to left, trying to find what didn't belong.

The building he had claimed had steadily fallen into disrepair as the weeks had passed by, but Jonathan had endeavoured to keep this room somewhat intact, if only for necessity. It held his most important equipment, the ingredients and tools that he needed to create his toxins.

The boarded-up windows offered little visibility, only slits of pale morning light cutting through the darkness. But Jonathan knew the shadows. He lived them, breathed them, thrived in them.

He knew every inch on this room, the exact placement of everything—which was why his gaze easily picked out the shape of a figure leaning against the far wall.

His fingers fluttered, twitched, the needles on the tips scraping against the thick fabric of his gloved palms. Caution wound through him at the sight of the intruder, coupled with a subtle shiver of curiosity.

No one had ever broken into his laboratory before. No one had ever been stupid enough to try.

It made him want to laugh. That some fool had managed to stumble their way into the very heart of his domain, the proverbial mouse in a lion's den, and that they were seconds away from experiencing the sharpest, most acute sense of fear in their lives.

But his amusement was brittle and tasted burnt because none of this was actually funny.

It wasn't funny that someone was here, in his laboratory with his notes and untested toxins; because that meant they where skilled enough to slip through his followers without raising an alarm. Or leaving a trail of bodies behind them.

It wasn't funny that someone had been in here unattended for an unknown amount of time and surrounded by some of his most sensitive work, yet had enough sense and knowledge to avoid setting off any of the traps he had put in place.

It wasn't funny, because that combination or intent and skill was dangerous and he was going to kill them—

"Hello, Mr. Crane."

The light clicked on, flooding the room with a soft orange glow.

Jonathan blinked, his eyes adjusting to the sudden onslaught as his body coiled in preparation. He raised the blade of his scythe and took a step forward before the voice caught up to him.

He looked—really looked—at the figure across from him, and the burst of anger at the invasion of his sanctuary vanished.

Jonathan cocked his head to the side.

He recognised that face. Recognised those cutting blue eyes; and that hair, once long and flowing, now short and curling close to her cheeks.

Mostly, he recognised the way she held herself. Assured. Confident. Every line in her body whispering predator.

Bryce Wayne.

It was a surprise in the same way it wasn't.

Wayne's hand let go of the beaded cord attached to the lamp beside her, her arm dropping down against her side leisurely. Jonathan watched its fall, saw the paleness of her skin and the way her long delicate fingers curled into a half-fist.

He lowered his scythe, moving it to one hand and twisting it so that the blade hung low to the floor. Not a threat, not quite a concession.

"Ms. Wayne," he replied, matching the bland politeness of her own greeting. Inside, his thoughts spun, intrigue scratching at the corners of his mind.

She looked at him, calm and cool and collected, and Jonathan wondered what she wanted. What possible reason this girl could have for seeking him out when they were scarcely acquainted.

The last time they had seen each other—

a scarred smile, the tick of a clock, a lulling voice

—he had been too preoccupied with his work to pay attention. He'd had no interest in Jerome's games with the girl; had no interest in Wayne at all, not in her pretty face or her bottomless bank account.

She was a non-entity to him. A name that hovered at the edge of his awareness through nothing more than a common association; and only that because no one ran with Jerome Valeska without slicing themselves on his fixations.

Wayne was forever entwined with Jerome in Jonathan's mind, a correlation that had only solidified with the brief snatches he had seen of her while she was held by their ill-begotten group.

But now she was here, in front of him, standing expectantly like Jonathan owed her something.

It irritated him.

"Why are you here?" He asked finally, after the minutes of utter silence had stretched on too long and she made no move to break it.

Wayne's gaze cut away from him for the first time since the light had turned on. Her attention drifted idly to the side, to the table just next to her and the paper strewn about its surface, then to the room as a whole. She observed his work with a clinical kind of regard. Passive. Untouchable.

Bored, he would hazard, but that didn't seem quite right either. There was something about her, something in the tilt of her chin and the set of her shoulders that undermined the air of detachment she projected.

Testing, he shifted his weight and lifted his scythe the barest amount, and all at once those cold blue eyes were pinned on him once more.

Jonathan paused, something close to satisfaction brewing inside him at the knowledge that Wayne was, despite all appearances, wary of him—that she knew the danger she was in, that she saw him as a threat.

He didn't know why that pleased him so much, why the opinion of one little girl seemed necessary to him, why her silent acknowledgement and respect mattered to him, but it did.

Having Bryce Wayne's attention on him was electrifying in that moment, the full weight of her focus piercing him, picking at him, interested in him. It was a heady sensation, and his reaction to it was unbalancing and baffling in equal measure.

He had always wondered just what it was about her that reeled people in. The thing that seemed to burrow so deeply into the minds of those around her and niggled at them until she haunted their thoughts; until everything they did seemed to revolve around her.

He had seen it time and again.

He saw it with Gordon, in the sickly sweet way the man repeatedly threw himself on the sword for her. How he hovered whenever she was near, desperate and attentive in a way that really should have raised eyebrows.

He'd seen it with Jerome, with so many of the man's plans centred around Wayne, and the shard of glass he kept in his pocket—his fingers always sliding along the edge of it, tapping it against his cheek, his lips, his throat, like he couldn't help him. Staring into his jagged reflection for hours at a time. Something in Jerome just lit up whenever Wayne was mentioned; whenever he saw her, spoke to her, touched her.

And now even Jeremiah Valeska had fallen into her orbit. Jonathan didn't know the minutiae of that disaster—had honestly avoided the other man from the moment he realised the gas he'd crafted for Jerome had worked a little too well—but anyone with eyes and ears knew that Jeremiah had some interest in her.

Why, Jonathan hadn't known, but now he was beginning to guess.

Because for all she looked like a doll, with her soft skin and regal features and pretty mouth, her gaze was hard like steel and dark. Angry.

Oh yes, he could see it now, so clearly it was a wonder he'd missed it before. The way that hot fire crackled in her eyes, spitting embers, and building into something truly destructive.

Perhaps this was what Jerome had seen. Perhaps this was what he had wanted to bring forth, what he had wanted to claw free of her and fester under her expensive clothes and gleaming jewellery. Perhaps this was why he had given the order to Tetch.

He wondered, with this first glimpse of the burning wreckage lurking within her, if Jerome had even known what he was unleashing on Gotham. If he had known exactly what type of creature Bryce Wayne would grow into, with the right push—the right words—or if he just wanted to sit back and watch the result.

It didn't matter now though. Jerome was gone, and whatever he had intended with her was in the past.

Now, Wayne was just another monster scrabbling to survive on their hellish island. Just another monster with blood-stained hands and a cracked smile. Just another monster left adrift in a world that wanted to put a bullet in her head for what she was forced to become, and then call it justice.

"I'd like to propose something," Wayne began, and it made Jonathan want to smile at how proper she sounded, even now as Gotham crumbled around them. The remnants of a society in ruins. Was this what she had sounded like when she spoke to her board members up in that sparkling tower with her name emblazoned on the side?

He was curious, though. Curious enough to listen.

"Oh?" He asked, taking another step forward, another small test, but other than a small twitch of her head to follow him, she didn't react. It would have been disappointing if not for the flare of excitement that sizzled low in his gut. "And what's that? What can a trust-fund girl like you offer me. Money's nothing anymore."

Wayne inclined her head as if she were conceding the point to him, and absurdly a laugh rumbled in his throat, silent and begging to be released.

It had been a long time since he had spoken to someone quite like her. Some genteel. Manners had no place in this new age. Kindness got you killed, and respect was the only currency that meant anything these days.

But it was…refreshing at the same time. Entertaining to see someone who still held those things sacred.

"That's true, Mr. Crane. But not what I wanted to discuss." She scanned him, just a quick dip of her eyes running over him—and Jonathan wondered what she thought of him, what went through her head as she looked at him, at his suit and what he had crafted himself into—before she returned her eyes to his.

"I need your help."

And wasn't that just delightful.

Jonathan had known the conversation was slowly circling to this moment, because really, what other reason could she have to confront him like this? But to hear those words from someone like her was delicious.

"With what?" He moved closer, clearing the entry completely and knocking the door closed with the end of his scythe. It shut with a muted bang, locking them in together and cutting off the only escape route. "I'd think you'd go to your Green Zone friends for help. Out here—we're not exactly your crowd, are we, baby?"

The pet name slipped out without his consent, but he was rewarded with a glimmer of indignation at it and Jonathan had never been someone to let such an obvious pressure point go without digging his fingers in first.

"You have no idea what my crowd is these days, Mr. Crane," Wayne snapped, that carefully fanned fire in her blazing forward for a tantalising second before she reigned it back in.

Jonathan clicked his tongue. "Oh, really? Correct me if I'm wrong, but James Gordon is usually one of them." He reached the table closest to him and tapped the needle-tips of his glove against it in a soft, echoing patter. "You're the GCPD's mascot, didn't you know? Sad little orphan girl that they try so hard to protect. Everyone knows that Gordon and the rest would trip over themselves to save you."

Tension wrapped its hand around her form at his words, but what was more interesting was the ugly splash of rage that crossed her features at the mention of Gordon. His brain started to itch.

"I don't live in the Green Zone," Wayne said, her tone laced with something acidic.

Jonathan finally let out that laugh. "You expect me to believe that you've been slumming it down here with us?"

Her chin raised, a challenge and a threat all wrapped up in a pretty package. "Believe what you want, I really don't care. Will you help me or not?" The thin veneer of politeness was melting, revealing the writhing thing underneath.

Jonathan spread his hands, "You haven't even told me what you need help with, sweetheart."

Her lips pursed, expression falling flat and unamused. "Jeremiah Valeska took something of mine. I need assistance getting it back."

Surprised but unwilling to show it, Jonathan hummed. "What did he take?"

"Does it matter?" Wayne asked him, frowning lightly.

Jonathan shrugged, "Valeska is a top contender right now. Going against him is as good as declaring war. I need to know what I'm risking that for."

What's so important that you'd come to me for help?

Wayne stared him down for a long moment, her eyes darting over his masked face, before she relented with a biting sigh. "He took someone that I care about. My guardian. I intend to take him back, but I need help."

Jonathan's smile widened. "You mustn't have been watching your man closely if Valeska could snatch him up so easily."

Again, her face shifted, that anger rising. "Alfred and I parted ways, I wasn't with him when he was taken, or he would obviously still be safe." She said it with such confidence, not quite breeching into arrogance.

Jonathan remembered the ease with which this slip of a girl had dropped men twice her size when Jerome had gone after her. He remembered the controlled brutality of her movements, the fluidity of a dancer mixed with the precision of a scalpel.

He imagined that she had only gotten stronger in the past weeks.

Losing your morality had that effect.

"So, what did you want me to do?" He asked, tone light and almost coy as he started to ease his way around the table and towards her. "You want my followers? Want me to sacrifice my own men for your crusade?"

Disdain was dripping from her tongue when she replied. "I don't need your men, I have my own. I need you." She declared, and there was no way that she could know how that made Jonathan's breath stutter. "What I need is something that will take out a large number of people long enough that I can get Alfred out without unnecessary complications for my people."

He crept even closer, footsteps soundless on the wooden floor, stopping only when she was in range of his scythe if he wanted to use it. There was no flicker of fear on her face as she watched him. Just caution.

"You want my toxins, baby?" It wasn't what he'd been expecting, but then again, nothing about this meeting had been.

"Non-lethal only," Wayne said, rather viciously.

"If you really want to cripple Jeremiah, it shouldn't be," he offered, not sure if he was disappointed at her restraint or not.

Wayne scowled. "This is a recuse mission," she reiterated, "I want him back alive. Using deadly toxins would be counterproductive, wouldn't you say?"

Jonathan held his hands up in surrender, keeping his canisters pointed away from her just in case it set her off. Judging by the way her eyes shot to his wrists, it was a wise decision.

"Calm down there," he said, "non-lethal is easy." Jonathan leaned against the table, propping his hip against its edge, and placing his hand there comfortably. "I can make it for you, but I need something in return. Nothing's free."

"An alliance."

Jonathan stopped, his eyebrows rising underneath his mask. "An alliance?"

Wayne nodded, "Yes."

Jonathan sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, mind rolling over all the snippets he hadn't realised that she had been giving him. Suspicion pooled in his gut, but he continued to push. "No offence, sweetheart, but I doubt that you have anything to offer in an alliance."

And she must have been waiting for that invitation because all Wayne did was click her fingers and a knife was suddenly buried in the table by Jonathan's hand.

He couldn't contain the flinch that rattled through him, jerking away, and twisting in the direction the blade had come from. His heart beat fiercely in his chest.

A figure emerged from the opposite end of the room, dressed completely in black, face masked and with another several knives glinting in his hands. A second, then a third stepped forward as well—all in the same uniform, all faceless shadows.

Despite the danger, Jonathan felt exhilarated. He chuckled, the pieces beginning to fall into place.

He had thought that Wayne was just another monster scurrying around, directionless and alone.

But she wasn't.

There had been rumours recently of a new power in Gotham, a presence seeping into the rot their city was built on. Whispers of a name, a person, that stalked through the dark with an army at their heels.

Malika.

Queen.

It had taken some effort to find that translation, and Jonathan had initially thought it a pretentious title. Now he could see how appropriate it was.

Bryce Wayne had been the princess of Gotham. The newspapers, the upper echelon, Jerome—they had all called her that in some variation over the years, and it had stuck.

But princesses were little girls with bright eyes and happy endings.

Queens were something else entirely, and looking at her with new eyes, Jonathan thought that maybe Wayne had been one long before Tetch had dripped his honeyed words into her ears. Maybe she had been one from the night her happy ending had been ripped from her hands, parents dead at her feet and their blood on her face.

Either way, the evolution suited her.

He carefully turned back to her, acknowledging where the power was right now. He was not defenceless, not with his canisters still full and tables of experimental chemicals all around them, but he was too fascinated to care.

Her men wouldn't attack him anyway, not if she needed him. This little show was just that—a demonstration, an answer, a taste of what she could bring to the table.

"Colour me impressed," he said, sincere and buzzing with interest.

Wayne studied him critically, before her eyes darted to the three men behind him. "You can wait for me outside," she ordered, and Jonathan glanced over his shoulder just in time to see them all bow.

Bow.

"Malikati," one of them murmured, and the reverence that caressed the word was intoxicating.

The three of them left the room, no doubt lingering in the hallway.

"How'd a girl like you get followers like that?" He mused, more to himself than anything, but she answered regardless.

"They've always been mine. I was chosen to be their next leader; though it wasn't until recently that I took up the role."

"Recently," Jonathan looked at her, wanting to peel back all those layers. "You mean Tetch."

"Yes," Wayne said, her voice rasping.

The silence swelled between them, and Jonathan finally asked the question that had been trapped behind his teeth this whole time.

"What did he say to you?"

It was strange that Wayne was aware that she had been hypnotised. From what Jonathan had seen, most of Tetch's victims had no idea what happened around them when he used his powers on them. Most fell into a type of trance, or woke up confused and disorientated. Some didn't wake up at all.

But Wayne was conscious. She understood what had happened to her, that who she was now was nothing more than an impression that had been forced upon her. A tilted axis, a violation of her very self.

"Tetch didn't do as much as people think," Wayne told him softly, her hands burrowing into the pockets of her jacket. "All he did was pick the lock. I opened the door on my own."

Jonathan's fingers twitched at the confession as he wondered just how true that was, to calculate how much credit he could give her words. How much of this was Bryce Wayne, and how much of it was the inky fingerprints of someone else on her mind?

"You still didn't answer my question," was all he said in response. He went back through their encounter, trying to find his own answers.

Wayne smiled, and it wasn't a nice expression.

"He told me the same thing a lot of people have," she murmured, eyes taking on a fervent glow. "Let go."

She was absolutely captivating.

Aware of the foreign force enacted on her, but instead of fighting it she had embraced it. She had taken Tetch's vague instructions and twisted them into something she could control. She had wrestled the manipulations into her own hands, bending their meaning until they fit her desires.

Jonathan wished, suddenly, to have witnessed that descent. To have seen just how Wayne—no, Bryce—had succumbed to Tetch's orders. To have watched how her mind warped and changed as she made herself into something stunning and beguiling.

How long had it taken? Was it a slow, insidious poison; or fast and horrifying to those who knew her?

Just what would Tetch have thought at seeing the wondrous thing Bryce had become. Would the man have been proud that he had had a hand in the creation of someone so marvellous, or would he have been perturbed at what she had accomplished?

Another thing occurred to Jonathan then, another piece clattering into place.

"You killed Tetch."

It was obvious now. Tetch's death had been spectacularly violent, and within days all of Gotham had heard of the gruesome end of the Mad Hatter. His tongue torn from his mouth, eyes gouged out, and his watch lodged deep in his throat. His body had been left on the edge of the Green Zone, tossed in a gutter like trash.

No one had claimed responsibility for the death, and though Jonathan had worked closely with the man in the past, he had felt nothing beyond a sense of distant relief that Tetch's nebulous powers would be buried with him.

Bryce didn't confirm his statement, but she didn't need to.

"He was the only person capable of changing you back," Jonathan continued, unable to stop himself from drifting even closer, pressing himself into her space. His eyes were ravenous as he stared at her. "He was the only one capable of undoing the hypnosis, of turning you back into who you were. But you killed him, and you're still like this—so either it didn't work, or…"

His next breath was harsh as the realisation hit him, and he was grinning, ecstatic and triumphant all at once.

"Or you didn't want it. You didn't want him to change you back, didn't want to be their doe-eyed mascot poster girl anymore. You killed the only person who could do it so you could stay like this."

He laughed, jubilant, because she didn't deny a single word of it and Jonathan had never met anyone like her before. She was in a category all her own and it made sense, because every assumption he'd had about her so far was wrong and he loved it.

"What a frightening little beast you are, baby," he crooned, face flushed. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

Bryce straightened, tilting her head up until their eyes met. Their faces were inches apart, and Jonathan was almost disappointed at the barrier his mask presented. He wanted to feel her breath on his skin.

"So, you agree?"

"Sure do, sweetheart. Just think of all the trouble we could get into together."

His teasing seemed to thaw the last bit of frost from her. The smile that bloomed onto Bryce's face was small and lovely and enticing. It was a smile full of promises and permissions, a smile that men would kill to bring about.

"I'm counting on it," she murmured, reaching out and placing her hand on his chest, fingers splayed. Jonathan shuddered, and the faint sound her nails made as she dragged them down over the seams and grooves of his suit was exquisite. She pushed herself onto her toes, her mouth hovering somewhere close to his.

"Let me know when you're done with my order."

Then she was dancing backwards, smiling as she weaved between the tables and towards the door.

"Leaving so soon?" He called after her, enjoying the smooth way she moved, each step calculated and hinting at what she truly was.

"You haven't given me a good enough reason to stay," she replied, whip smart. Jonathan couldn't see if her guards were lingering in the hallway as she opened the door, but he knew they had to be around somewhere.

"And Jonathan?"

Hearing his name, spoken so casually by her, that high-class accent curling over it, had warmth spreading through him.

"I prefer Bryce."

* * *

**So, as stated in the story, this whole thing revolves around the idea that in the diner, after Bryce saved Jerome, he saved her in return and kidnapped her, bringing her to their headquarters where he messed with her for fun. Jerome inevitably got Tetch to hypnotise Bryce in a way that would skew her morality. A lot of things leading up to the bridges being blown are different, because Bryce became this darker version of herself that isn't afraid to kill - and she refused to work with Jeremiah for different reasons - and instead took up her position in the League of Shadows, as Ra's replacement (let's just ignore that whole sexist little moment where "women can't be in charge"). Probably doesn't make much sense but canon is whatever I want it to be, so this is what I did.**

**I'll maybe expand on it one day with power couple Jonathan and Bryce, but who knows?**

**Let me know your thoughts and as always, my tumblr is 'Child_OTKW'. Thanks guys!**


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